Michigan’s Newest Accelerator, Coolhouse Labs, Launches Tomorrow

Michigan’s new startup accelerator is launching its first cohort tomorrow. It’s not in Detroit, Pontiac, or even Ann Arbor. The Coolhouse Labs accelerator is based in a resort town off Lake Michigan called Harbor Springs, the hometown of 27-year-old Jordan Breighner, co-founder and Managing Director of Coolhouse Labs.

Harbor Springs is a small town with under 2000 year-round residents. It was once a popular summer destination for autoworkers, the life bread of Michigan’s economy. Like many others, Breighner sees the path to improving an economy is through entrepreneurship and startups.

Although he has no “formal” entrepreneurial experience, Breighner has a diverse background, including a stint working for the Obama administration and going to college in Utah to become a ski racer. His vision, passion, and tenacity to get things done has helped him secure the seed investments for the first five teams in this first cohort. He’s also stocked his team with a Program Director, Resident Designer, and Resident Developer. Breighner has also been able to attract a top notch advisory board.

Now, just four months after launching the idea, the first cohort is ready to move into Coolhouse Labs. Coolhouse has attracted teams from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Taiwan. 3 out of the 5 teams have a female co-founder, 3 out of the 5 teams have an international co-founder, and the average co-founder is traveling over 2700 miles to be part of Coolhouse Labs.

Here are the five teams.

Every Last Morsel – Every Last Morsel is a community marketplace for locally grown food – like an Etsy for small farms and backyard gardeners. It provides growers with web-based record-keeping tools and easy-to-use sales outlets that allow farms to focus on doing what they love: growing good food.

Lorious – Lorious is an online marketplace for expertise, where users can buy and sell one-on-one live video chat consulting services, at any time and from any location. Lorious empowers people to gain skills, from crafting to accounting, and to take ownership of their professional identities in response to this ever-changing economy.

Novi Times – Novi is aiming to redefine mobile news discovery through search. They have developed an editor-guided algorithm that helps users discover news through topics they want to follow.

QuickFixNow – QuickFixNow delivers fast and reliable home repair, connecting consumers with contractors on-demand through a mobile and web-based platform.

TRNK New York – TRNK New York is the online shopping destination for the discerning male who seeks an inspired and character-filled home.

Find out more about Coolhouse Labs here.

See what accelerator Drive Capital’s Mark Kvamme said was “One of the best outside Silicon Valley”

Google’s New Wifi Technology, Nina Wrote A Song About It

Ok, so it’s not 99 red balloons, but today Google announced that they are beta testing a program in New Zealand that, according to The Washington Post, will connect billions of people to the Internet. The Internet giant has released 30 giant helium filled balloons into the skies over New Zealand. They have 50 people on the ground testing out WiFi that is being beamed from the balloons.

The balloons will move across the stratosphere along the 40th parallel in the Southern Hemisphere where the beta testers will hopefully be able to receive the signal and actually use the Internet.

The balloons were released earlier this week and are said to be transmitting WiFi signals comparable to those found on 3G data here in the U.S.

Partly because the idea is so crazy and partly because it involves balloons, the project coming out of Google’s Project X labs has been appropriately dubbed “Project Loon”.

According to this TechCrunch report, Google engineers will remotely control the balloons using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help predict the ballons flight paths. The engineers will be able to move the balloons up and down to catch the right winds and keep the balloons on their correct flight path.

The main goal behind Project Loon is getting Internet access to the two thirds of the people that don’t currently have it. In fact, in the introductory video (below) they start off by saying that for every one person that has Internet access, two don’t. Google is hoping that Project Loon will bring access to remote areas as well as areas where terrain and other factors prohibit more traditional Internet infrastructure. Some examples maybe jungles, rain forests and even deserts. TechCrunch also speculates that Project Loon could help make the Internet affordable to those areas as well.

You can find out more about Project Loon here and by watching the introductory video below.

Is Itunes Radio the Pandora Killer?

Memphian Sarah Lacy Gives Away Big Omaha’s Secret At Tennessee’s Southland Conference

A refreshing side of Sarah Lacy returned to her native Tennessee on Wednesday morning to kick off the first Southland Conference. If you’ve seen Lacy on her best you know she can be a hard edged interviewer that commands respect in the room, after all with her storied career and climbing through Business Week, TechCrunch, authoring books and two children, she’s earned it. But Wednesday morning her southern Tennessee charm returned when she welcomed her interviewee Gary Swart, CEO of Odesk for a fireside chat.

Before the interview though, Lacy wanted to hand a secret over to the organizers and attendees of the first ever Southland conference. Lacy talked abut Big Omaha, the centerpiece of Silicon Prairie News’ “Big Series” and a must attend conference for entrepreneurs everywhere. “Do you know how they get big names at Big Omaha” Lacy asked the audience. Then she proceeded to show everyone.

First off she made it clear as southerners and entrepreneurs we were going to “steal” what Big Omaha does. After that she showed off Jeff Slobotski’s (the organizer of Big Omaha and founder of SPN) secret.

It was a huge warm welcome that made each of the speakers, big and small, feel like the biggest person on earth. “Pretend Gary is Oprah and she just gave everyone a car” Lacy told the audience as she asked everyone to practice the big welcome.

Although Southland is in Nashville it’s designed to celebrate entrepreneurship throughout the south east and with that in mind Lacy made plenty of references to her Memphis upbringing during her talk with Swart. Lacy made the trek from Silicon Valley with her 8 week old baby in tow.

Here’s some video

Check out more of our Southland coverage here.

Jersey City Startup easi6 Wants To Make Meetings Easier With Doors & Dots

No it’s not a game. Doors & Dots is a new mobile app released by Jersey City startup easi6 that aims to help people organize and collaborate on meetings. They focus on the most important details of what, with whom, where, and when.

A lot of meetings, especially impromptu ones, are often too small to bother with long drawn out notes, but too big for a quick mention in your calendar. Doors & Dots makes it incredibly easy to create meetings, share meeting-related content, and then archive that content for later use.

Doors and Dots believes that they are solving common problems with meetings, specifically near term meetings, by focusing in four areas; create, share, snap, and socialize.

While there are many apps out there that are designed to quickly help people organize social events, none have been targeted for people having actual meetings. Most people plan their meetings out in advance, but impromptu meetings occur all the time, especially when someone is traveling and trying to see as many clients, colleagues, or associates as possible.

Say you’re in New York City for a big convention, and you want to kill your downtime by meeting with potential developers. Using Doors & Dots you can quickly organize that meeting (and others just like it), you can keep notes and photos from that meeting, and now you can even use Doors & Dots’ newest feature and track meeting attendees as they are en route. When you’re in a new area and running late, the person you’re meeting with can track you and help you find the best route.

What is your startup?

Our startup is easi6, Inc., a mobile app development company. We make Doors & Dots, a mobile app for creating, sharing, and discovering near-term meetings and for quickly and easily sharing meeting details on the go. Doors & Dots is currently available for free download to iOS devices from the Apple App Store.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Kay Woo (@climbingK) – Founder & CEO Kay holds bachelor’s degrees from Seoul National University (SNU – Korea) and Binghamton University (SUNY) in electrical engineering, financial economics, and mathematics, as well as a master’s degree in financial mathematics from Columbia University. In addition to his academics, Kay also brings to easi6 his experience working with startups and private equity investors in green investments and green technologies/consulting.

Jaehwa Han (@drunkhacker) – Co-Founder & CTO Jaehwa is a co-founder of easi6, Inc., and serves as the lead engineer for Doors & Dots iOS, Android OS, and back-end system development. Jaehwa graduated from Seoul National University with B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science and engineering. From his multiple startup experiences, Jaehwa has gained substantial skills in the development of mobile services, ranging from front-end to back-end systems. Among Jaehwa’s previous mobile projects is the development of a student-facing mobile application for Seoul National University. Additionally, Jaehwa has recently completed an internship at IBM’s Austin Research Lab, participating in IBM’s ‘Mobile First’ project.

Jordan Jarecki (@salserokid) – Co-Founder & CGO Coming to easi6 with academic backgrounds in social and area studies, Jordan also brings his professional experience in direct sales with an energy supply company and business operations in Campus Activities at Binghamton University (SUNY). Having completed startup training with the NYS Small Business Administration, and having developed many student-group and NPO connections, Jordan leverages his training and contacts to add value to easi6.

Where are you based?

easi6 is headquartered in Jersey City, NJ, just above the local favorite Powerhouse Lounge.

What problem does your startup solve?

Our mission at easi6 is to solve common problems with uncommon technologies – uncommon in their application, that is. With Doors & Dots, we’re making coming together with friends, and sharing meeting information on the go, faster and easier. We’re doing this by applying the latest technologies in social networking, location-based services, social media, and user modeling.

While other apps have tried to tackle social planning, Doors & Dots focuses on creating meetings and sharing meeting-related content. Currently, the typical methods of coordinating an activity are to use basic texting or email or to make use of social messaging services, like GroupMe, WhatsApp, or KakaoTalk. These tools are effective for planning meetings but not so friendly for sharing multi-varied content on the go.

Doors & Dots organizes the most important details of a meeting (for what, with whom, where, and when) in a single mobile screen, complete with meeting photos, a comment thread, and an interactive meeting map. Users can share their real-time locations en route to a meeting, chat on the map, and socialize around locations in a virtual, geographic space. We’re also proud of the ability on Doors & Dots to invite friends via text message and/or email using the information logged in a given user’s mobile device contact list. This way, users’ friends can still be kept in the loop, even if those friends do not use Doors & Dots or have smartphones.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

One major challenge that the easi6 team had to overcome early on was the physical distance between the team members. When the easi6 team first came together, the two business co-founders were in Jersey City, NJ; our lead engineer and co-founder was in Austin, TX; and our four developers were in Seoul, South Korea. Just recently, we brought all but two developers to our headquarters in Jersey City.

For the past six to eight months, however, we’ve had to make it work through careful and consistent communication. In addition to Google’s collaborative tools, Skype & Github have been invaluable services. Of course, we’ve always had to contend with the 13/14-hour time difference between Jersey City and Seoul, depending on Daylight Savings. We understand why Marissa Mayer decided to end Yahoo’s work-from-home employment policies, despite the controversy that ensued.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

Beyond bringing together an academically diverse and experienced, Korean-American team (including highly connected and talented advisors), and in addition to pivoting from a business venture in a completely different industry, the biggest milestone that our startup has thus far achieved is the development, implementation, and release of Doors & Dots for iOS.

We’re extremely proud of this accomplishment. We’re a group of young, aspiring entrepreneurs and the fact that we could learn as much as we have, develop a concept from scratch, and bring a product to market all in less than a year is an experience that could not be easily replicated in many other industries.

What are your next milestones?

Looking forward to the summer and fall of 2013, we have a number of major milestones to hit:

1. Early implementation of user modeling and machine learning modules for arrival-time and transit-method estimation.

2. Take Doors & Dots cross-platform with an Android OS version. This is an important milestone for the easi6 team as we seek to be competitive in the Korean market.

3. Begin implementation and testing of various premium and retail-orientated features.

4. Complete a beta version of, and prepare for live trials of, a Doors & Dots platform solution central to our early monetization strategy. A beta release of this solution is set for late fall 2013 or early winter 2014.

What’s next for your startup?

At this point, our startup is still very much in the market-fit stage of product development, testing, and iteration. We’re pre-money and pre-revenue, bootstrapping easi6 & Doors & Dots all the way. As our user base grows, we’ll continue to assess the need to take on funding to cover our growth and operating expenses.

In the meantime, we are seeking user feedback, pursuing media and other exposure opportunities, continuing to build out Doors & Dots advanced functionality, developing and testing our first platform solution, and making investor pitches. Furthermore, in order to better reach out to our target-user demographic, we are in the early stages of establishing a student ambassador program at select colleges. This program will continue to expand over the course of 2013 and 2014, and we are always seeking interested and ambitious students.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

We encourage tech enthusiasts, app users, and especially students, to check out our splash page online at: www.doorsndots.com, and to look for us on both Facebook and Twitter. We have a Facebook page and a Twitter page for both the company (www.facebook.com/easi6; @easi6) and the app (www.facebook.com/doorsndots; @doorsndots), respectively. Interested parties can also find us on LinkedIn and join the discussion on our startup blog at: blog.easi6.com.

Michael Arrington’s favorite game has a very similar name and icon to Doors & Dots.

Team Led By 14-Year-Old Wins Startup Weekend Tampa

Last weekend Startup Weekend came back to Tampa. Startup Weekend attracts developers, designers, and entrepreneurs of all ages to a 54 hour hackathon to build out company and startup ideas. Teams go beyond a business plan and 54 hours later strive to have a working product.

That’s just what happened for 14-year-old Nathan Eyal and his team that worked on Live Warfare. The team that built out this mobile game also included Eyal’s dad Omer, who brought him out for the 54 hour hackathon.

According to 83degreesmedia, the product is a person-to-person video game that allows players to take a picture of someone and then digitally “shoot” them. Once they’re shot a notification is sent to their phone. Think of it as virtual paintball.

Ed Glarza, Akira Mitchell, Ken Morris, and Matt Saulding rounded out the younger Eyal’s team. “We focus on the team, and I think their team was really strong,” Ryan Sullivan, co-organizer for Startup Weekend told 83degrees. “Because Nathan was so passionate about the idea, he kept the team moving forward and making decisions.”

Nathan pitched his Live Warfare idea to a packed house at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg on Friday evening. That’s when participants have 60 seconds to pitch their idea. After the initial pitches they go around the room with poster board signs and the people in the audience vote (typically with a colored sticker) on what projects they think should be developed. At the end of the vote, the projects with the most votes are hacked out over the remaining time.

During that time, Nathan and his team were able to build out the app. They also tested it out with friends and got real feedback on the idea. By the time final pitches occurred on Sunday afternoon Live Warfare was a finished product.

The second and third place finishers were both based on crowdsourced data. BuySignal came in second place. Their startup monitors Twitter feeds to find “indicators” that someone is about to make a purchasing decision. The third placed finisher, StreezWize, is an app that allows people to provide real time feedback about potential crimes.

See how these 10 year olds are sparking happiness and entrepreneurship.

Image: startupweekend.org

CentUp Comes to Nibletz, See What It Does

Have you ever read a great blog post and wished there was some way to show your support? Sure, you could leave a comment or tweet a link. That stuff’s great. But you know what content creators really need?

Cash. Just like the rest of us.

There’s been a slowly growing trend of micropayment companies in the last few years. The deal is that you, the reader, give a very small amount–even a few pennies–to your favorite bloggers or content companies when they create something you like. It’s another way of showing your gratitude and helping them stay in business. Win-win.

Now, though, Chicago company CentUp is upping the ante even more. Instead of transactions straight from consumer to content company, there’s a third party benefiting from your pennies: charities.

CentUp will take 10% of all donations, and the other 90% will be split evenly between 1 of 6 charities and the content provider. The charities include national nonprofits such as Love146 and The Fender Music Foundation. As the company grows, they plan to add more charities.

Nibletz is proud to be a CentUp publisher. Our button is right there at the top of each post. All you have to do is sign up with CentUp, then start clicking. Besides designating how much you want to give, you can also use the button to Tweet about your donation. It’s similar to a Facebook “like” button, but benefits a couple of great organizations.

For our part, we will use our portion to continue our Sneaker-Strapped Road Trip. This enables us to travel the country, get in the trenches with great startups, and talk to amazing investors. It’s also when we cover awesome events like SXSW and Southland, which starts tomorrow. In fact, the majority of our content (which we know you love!) comes from our Sneaker-Strapped Road Trip. Love Nibletz? Every little bit helps us continue to be the voice of startups everywhere else.

Is iTunes Radio The Pandora Killer?

Almost a month ago, Google held their annual developer’s conference known as Google IO. At the conference over 5000 Google developers across all of their platforms gathered at the Moscone Center in San Francisco for three and a half days of pure Google.

In that same venue, more than 5000 Apple developers, across all of their platforms, are gathered this week for the World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC).

Last month Google unveiled a new product called “Google Play All Access”. During the ceremonious unveiling, Google touted all kinds of features that positioned the part-radio, part-streaming music, part-cloud library, customizable music platform as a Spotify killer. Unfortunately, since the unveiling we haven’t heard much else about it. For all intents and purposes Google’s new music service has gone the way of Google Music, which is far from Apple’s stranglehold on library functionality and Spotify’s streaming offerings.

Today, during the WWDC Apple announced iTunes Radio. This was one of the longest rumored announcements for this year’s conference, which is being held more 200 days since Apple’s last announcement..

iTunes Radio will give users a variety of ways to get “radio like” streaming services via iTunes. Without any customization an iTunes user will be able to use iTunes Radio to hear radio stations generated by algorithms based on what’s already in the users iTunes library. Apple has also curated several stations based on genre, very similar to Pandora.

The service will be ad-supported and free to any iTunes user. Those users who pay for iTunes backup service iTunes Match will get to use iTunes Radio without ads.

Apple plans to make money by selling the streaming tracks at regular iTunes store prices. When you’re listening to an iTunes radio track, a purchase button will come up that will enable a friction-less download of the song that you are listening to.

Apple has some advantages over Pandora, Slacker, and even Spotify because they already have 600 million devices on the market, which means 600 million iTunes users. They’ve also already negotiated their own licenses with most of the major labels. Billboard Magazine reports that Apple will pay $.16 cents per stream in addition to a portion of the advertising revenue. However, payments won’t begin until Apple reaches a pre-established threshold of users on the iTunes Radio service.

Will iTunes Radio bring the music streaming crowd back to Apple? U.S. residents will be the first to test it out.

Images: VB

Apple is throwing a curve ball to would be iPhone thieves.

Apple Solves The Stolen iPhone Problem

A stolen iPhone or iPad can be an incredibly big problem for a lot of people. The problem can get even worse for a startup founder. Often times startup founders have test flight, alpha versions of their product on their iPhone. They may also have proprietary user data and other really important information. Sure using a number code to unlock your iOS device can hinder some would be thieves, but plenty of them know the work-arounds.

Well today at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple software VP Craig Federighi put a damper on future iOS device thefts.

Apple has baked a new feature called “Activation Lock” into the new iOS 7 operating system. The feature works side by side with “Find My Phone.” When the user loses their iPhone, they can use their iTunes account to disable that particular device from getting re-activated for any reason. In effect the stolen iPhone has just become a total brick.

Now of course, like “Find My Phone,” the user is going to be responsible for actually turning the service on. Once it’s on though, you’ll have the comfort of knowing that no one else can access anything on your device or get it reset and start using it as their own. As for actually getting your phone back, well, for now you’re on your own.

iOS 7 will be available to developers today and the public beginning later this fall.

Source and image: VB

Top Android Developer Cyanogen gets the startup bug.

J. Cole Partnered With Cincinnati Startup LISNR For Nationwide Mobile Listening Parties

First the Internet changed the music industry and the way artists do business and market themselves by creating a clear path between artists and fans. The use of the web and social media launched the careers of number one artists like Soulja Boy, Macklemore, and Ryan Lewis.

Now artists are gravitating towards mobile technology. This puts the artist in their fans’ pockets, available wherever they are.

That’s why Grammy nominated RocNation artist J.Cole has turned to mobile technology and Cincinnati startup LISNR with his unique idea for listening parties. For decades, artists have held listening parties at intimate locations just prior to an album launch. In the past they would do a mini tour and fly across the country to reach as many core fans as possible.

For the release of Cole’s new album Born Sinner, Sony Music, RocNation, and Beats by Dre utilized LISNR’s technology at private listening parties in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Fayetteville, NC (Cole’s hometown), Chicago, Boston, Houston, and Atlanta.

Through social media, fans were instructed to download the LISNR app, which hosted map coordinates informing fans where the parties took place. Once on site, fans listened to the entire Born Sinner album from start to finish through their headphones. Attendees accessed Born Sinner through LISNR, which activated and “sent” the music once a fan had been identified in range of LISNR’s content-unlocking signal. The entire experience was synchronized across all phones and cities at 8:00pm Thursday night, creating a unique, national listening party.

LISNR had previous success in the music space delivering exclusive content to fans through their branded mobile app. In March of this year, electronic dance trio Swedish House Mafia partnered with the company to deliver a fan-led laser light show during their final U.S. tour dates, specifically Masquerade Motel in Los Angeles, California.

LISNR was founded in March 2012 on the SXSW Startup Bus.

Now check out: Brandery startup alum FlightCar faces lawsuit

J.Cole Image: Radioplanet.tv

When It Comes to Communications, Startups Need the Whole Package

These days, you can start a company sitting in your pajamas with a laptop. Buoyed by cutting edge technology, the wisdom of crowds, and cloud computing, there are more startups than ever before. Separating the heroes from the hype can be quite the challenge for investors, so it’s important that entrepreneurs have a clear and attractive startup communications package from the get-go.

Pitch with Clarity and Authenticity

To get up and running, startups have to sell their sizzle before there’s any meat near the table. They must communicate their dreams and talk about how they’re ushering in the future. But they’ve got to be smart about selling those dreams to investors. For example, I recently received an automated email to consider investing in a startup called Crave. At first glance, it looked promising. The email contained praise from a successful male venture capitalist, and the CEO is a Stanford man.

Then, I found out what the company’s product was: vibrators. For women. So I had two men telling me how superior their vibrators were. I don’t think I need to break out the “mechanic who doesn’t drive a car” analogy here; Crave wasn’t going to pass the sniff test.

Ironically, if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that Crave actually has a female co-founder who fits the bill of authentically leading product development. Crave could benefit from using her when pitching investors. Being clear from the start about what the product is, as well as having an authentic spokesperson, is much more sensible.

Show off the Good Stuff

When pitching investors, it’s crucial to highlight business components savvy investors will be looking for. It starts with having the right team members, front and center, to communicate your idea. Startups capable of enticing investors typically have these qualities:

A seasoned entrepreneurial team — This doesn’t mean all the execs must have salt-and-pepper hair, but not everyone should be fresh off campus. Your money, sales, and operations people need to be experienced.
The best execution — You don’t necessarily need a new idea, but a high-quality startup will have the best way to execute a solution to a big problem and be able to explain to investors why your way will be profitable.
Clear commitment — Your team’s personal passion should be visible, with everyone committed to your dream.
A solid exit strategy — A viable startup has smart ideas about who could eventually acquire it.

Eliminate Red Flags

The things that turn off investors are the same things that hurt startups in the long run. If your company exhibits any of these characteristics, you may have a problem convincing investors it’s the real deal.

Part-timers — There are exceptions, but if an entrepreneur is working part-time for her dream and part-time for “The Man,” she probably doesn’t believe in it as much as she wants an investor to. If you’re not ready to take the leap as a full-time entrepreneur, you’re probably not ready to take your idea to investors.
Family on the team — There are some killer family combos out there, but more often than not, family members are hired out of convenience and not because of any super skills they possess. If your business partner is family, make sure there’s a compelling attribute she brings to the team, and be able to sell that to investors.
Perceptible lack of process — Anything can look slick and stunning with today’s racy design platforms. But is anything actually getting done? With the rapid pace of the tech world, delays tell investors your company isn’t serious about breaking into the space.
No dream — Elon Musk. Richard Branson. Steve Jobs. These are entrepreneurs whose names are synonymous with “dreams.” It’s not just a matter of having passion for your business — it’s being able to communicate your dream to investors and make your excitement contagious.

Have the Right Answers

So, what questions should you be prepared to answer to show investors your startup is worthwhile? These three help expose a startup’s entrepreneurial DNA:

If you were going to be acquired today, who should acquire you, for how much, and why? Your answer must be thoughtful, with a clear plan for execution.
What’s the biggest problem with executing your dream? You can — and should — admit that you wrestle with this question on a daily basis.
Why does the world need you? The perfect answer here should not include a financial spreadsheet.

Show the Startup’s Full Potential

Being passionate about dreams is vital, but for a startup to be taken seriously, it also needs to be functional. You must show confidence in these practical aspects of your startup when pitching to investors:

The Technical — Does your startup have capable, mature technology that’s easy to execute?
The Financial — Can your business be scaled from the running start investors might give you? Do you need $1 million, or several million, to get significant scale?
The Managerial — Are the right leaders in place? Will they help optimize and scale your technology?

The Basic Communications Toolkit

Additionally, a basic communications toolkit gives startups a strong foundation to draw in investors. Pack your toolkit with these tips:

Maintain a website with a compelling story that encapsulates your voice and vision.
Create an engaging tagline for your elevator pitch. Think Kabbage’s “Easy cash for online sellers.”
Memorize the key components of your pitch deck, from market size to customers of note.
Be able to give detailed financials upon requested.
Utilize websites like AngelList and LinkedIn to build your online presence and spread your mission.

At the end of the day, daring visions capture investors’ attention, and substance convinces them. If a communications package shows passion on the outside and holds up to the logistics within, investors will be confident of getting a substantial return, which equals success for the startup.

Because this article was published, a donation will be made to Reading Is Fundamental so a book can be given to a child.

Lisa Calhoun is the CEO of Write2Market, an industry leadership consultancy that changes the world by helping tech and energy companies gain the reputations they deserve. Write2Market helps its clients scale by nabbing headlines, speaking engagements, and key business development opportunities, all with an eye on creating the best possible exit for the founding and investment team. Connect with Lisa on Twitter or LinkedIn or at her personal blog.

The Startup Fred Wilson And Union Square Ventures Would Back Right Now

The startup and venture capital world breathed a sigh of relief earlier this month when New York based venture capitalist, blogger extraordinaire and managing partner at Union Square Ventures, announced he was investing in Coinbase a startup that helps facilitate Bitcoin transactions. Sure Bitcoin is a hot commodity these days, just ask Ashton Kutcher, but there was more to it than that.

For many, Wilson’s investment in Coinbase was one of those big “signaling issues”. As most know, Wilson has been in a two year slump with investments while he tried to figure out what the next big thing was.

His firm, Union Square Ventures, did just fine with investments and made some great bets during Wilson’s cool period.

So what’s next more Bitcoin startups? Wilson has always been one to go ahead of the curve, so undoubtedly whatever he invests in next will go to that record. Wilson just saw an exit with Tumblr, for which he was an early investor. Some of their other great investments include Boxee, Turntable.fm, Twitter, Twilio and countless others.

Regardless of what’s actually in the pipeline, we can tell you for certain, if you read Wilson’s personal blog, avc.com, if you’ve got a team of college graduates who’ve developed the next thing that’s going to stop Google, and big hint here’s it’s not Bing, Wilson would go all in.

In a tribute to his daughter Jess who just graduated from College earlier this week, Wilson acknowledges the fact that he and USV often bet on college drop outs but he writes;

“Dropping out of college is all the rage today in startup land (even dropping out of high school). And when it comes to our business, we really do not care if someone went to or graduated from college. We have funded many college dropouts and will continue to.

But there is also something to finishing something you started. ”

So just to be clear, Wilson will still bet on dropouts but I’m willing to bet a college graduate team may have a special place in his heart these days.

As for what’s stopping Google, Wilson also wrote a short, sweet and to the point post called “Running the table”. In the post he talks about how Microsoft “ran the table” with desktop computing, Apple did it with mobile computing and Facebook did it with social networking. That was until Apple and the internet stopped Microsoft and Twitter stopped Facebook.

As for Google, Google is trying to run the table with the “entire fucking internet” and Wilson wants to know “Who Will Stop Google”.

So if you’ve got a college graduate team ready to stop Google, you better get that deck in front of Wilson.

Read Wilson’s blog avc.com daily. Got that startup ready, make sure your business plan submission includes a clear description of your operations and current progress and take it on over to Union Square Ventures, 915 Broadway, 19th Floor, New York, NY 10010, make it interesting, Wilson’s a busy go.

Here are Wilson’s Venture Capital Do’s & Dont’s

Cyanogen Gets Caught With The Startup Bug, Looking For Developers In Seattle

Cyanogen, Steve Kondik, Startup, Seattle Startup

(photo: Talkandroid.com)

Cyanogen, Steve Kondik, is a name we wrote quite often at thedroidguy.com but a quick perusing through the archives of nibletz and since focusing on startups “everywhere else” (3/2012) we haven’t gotten a chance to talk about the Android developer who’s Cyanogenmod open source firmware changed the landscape of Android for millions of users.

After creating the initial Cyanogenmod the project became a community effort with several developers working on future releases of the firmware that when installed, allows users to take advantage of many of the benefits Google has in the Android Operating system.

Android’s biggest manufacturer, Samsung, took notice of Kondik and his work with Cyanogenmod. Kondik moved from his Pittsburgh roots to Seattle to work on Samsung’s Android team.

Now it turns out that he’s left Samsung and while it was unclear at first why the change, things are starting to come to the surface. Apparently Kondik has been hit by the startup bug.

Granted Cyanogenmod was like a startup itself, except for the revenue part, however it came to market before “startup” was such an uber cool thing. With years of development experience it’s really no surprise that Kondik is involved in a startup himself.

We reached out to Kondik earlier today who said the startup he is working with is still in stealth mode. He wouldn’t comment as to whether or not he was a cofounder but did tell us he hopes to release more information on the startup later this summer.

Kondik did however confirm that the startup he is working with (or is it on) is based in Seattle and it’s a mobile focused startup. To that end he’s looking for developers, and shocker, they don’t need to be just Android developers.

Kondik told us today that remote working is a possibility but ideally a developer interested on working with this startup should be in the Seattle area (or perhaps willing to relocate).

Here’s what we can tell you about Kondik, since meeting him in person in 2010

– He’s an incredible guy to know, he’s extremely smart and willing to share his knowledge in a collaborative way, much the way Cyanogenmod evolved to today.

– Cyanogenmod turned into an astronomical success. While it’s open source and free, there are millions of Android users using the firmware.

– You can count on the fact that Kondik wouldn’t waste his time with something not worthy.

Cyanogen is looking for developers, interested in working on his next big thing? Venture over to his Facebook page.

This Athens Georgia startup started with a honey bee dance.

Indy Startup SteadyServ, A Beer Startup That Monitors The Keg

We’ve all been there, either a party where the keg is tapped dry way before it’s time, or trapsing through the bar district to find that bars are out of your favorite brew on tap. That’s how the story of SteadyServ actually started.

SteadyServ is an Indianapolis based startup founded by Steve Hershberger after a buddy came into town to visit him, only to find out their favorite kegs at their favorite spots were tapped dry. That got Hershberger’s entrepreneurial wheels turning. What he found out from bar owners and bartenders was that it’s very hard to monitor how much is left in a keg.

“He flies into town, and we go to Mass Ave,” Hershberger told the Indianapolis Business Journal. “We went to four bars, and they were all out. So we finally went back to the hotel and ordered one of the beers the bar had. It was just a beer he wasn’t really looking forward to having. His parting shot was, ‘Gee, Steve, you really let me down on this.’”

Sure if you’ve got one guy sitting by your keg all night and keeping track of the filled Red Solo Cups you may get a rough estimate but other than that it’s a shot in the dark. So what’s an entrepreneur to do? Put sensors and an app in the keg of course.

The heart of SteadyServ is a sensor laden device that monitors how much is left of the keg. When the keg is getting low it can alert customers, bartenders and bar management that the keg is running low. Sure we can all tell when last call is upon us, but imagine hanging out with buddies, drinking your favorite brew on tap and then getting a notification that the well is drying up. This will insure that you can get that one last glass before you have to switch brews.

So is this for real? Absolutely. Not only that but Hershberger reports that he’s already secured $1.5 million from investors to develop what’s being called the iKeg prototype.

In addition to the convenience the iKeg will provide to bars and their patrons, Hershberger has developed a data protocol within the iKeg that will provide valuable information on real time beer inventory control for bar owners on how customers are consuming beer. With the current keg inventory process so flawed, bar owners will quickly learn how fast their kegs are running out and they’ll be able to stop selling the beer that doesn’t sell and order more of the beer that does.

The data will also be valuable to distributors that SteadyServ will sell it too. As new bars and restaurants open up they ask the distributors what’s hot and what’s not. Now rather than base this information on what bars are really ordering they can base it on what customers are really drinking.

Hershberger already has some heavy hitters on his board of advisers including David Coors of Coors Brewing Company, the namesake family. Jeff Ready; CEO of Indianapolis-based Scale Computing Inc.; and Pat Canavan, former senior vice president of global governance for Motorola are also board members.

Most of their $1.5 million dollars came from angel investors however Indiana’s Elevate Ventures has committed $125, 000 to SteadyServ.

“The iKeg solution is breaking into a $21 billion draft beer industry where there’s incredible potential,” Elevate CEO Steve Hourigan said in a prepared statement. “It’s exciting and gratifying to see a company like SteadyServ make its home in Indiana, and we’re proud to say that we support their team and the business they’re building.”

You can find out more about SteadyServ at SteadyServ.com

SplitBin says they’re the Wolverine of Wine Startups.

Mike Muhney The Godfather Of CRM & 22 Others To Speak At Chicago TechWeek

Customer relationship management, or CRM has been big business since the late 1980’s. Sure these days everyone is very aware of Salesforce the cloud based CRM solution, but before there were clouds, the internet, mobile devices and salesforce there was ACT. ACT was the standard in CRM solutions starting in 1987. There are thousands of companies that still use ACT today.

While the backbone of any CRM software is a robust database, by name and by virtue CRM software is designed to help manage relationships. How do you know somebody, what do you know about somebody, how is one person related to another. These are all things that effective sales people, marketers, managers, and entrepreneurs count on to help reach the bottom line.

Mike Muhney is one of the cofounders of the original ACT software and over the past year he’s been taking over 25 years of experience in customer relationship management and pouring it into VIPOrbit, barnone the best mobile CRM solution out there.

We first met Muhney last year at Chicago TechWeek where he was introducing the world to VIP Orbit. We spent a lot of time with him during techweek and learned so much about not just VIP Orbit but about effectively managing relationships. Stuff that hundreds of books have been written on since the introduction of ACT.

I remember in earlier parts of my worklife reading about CRM and using ACT. ACT and by proxy now, VIPOrbit, allow you to manage the littlest details that can result in so much more when applying that information down the road.

For instance back in the 90’s during my radio career as a Music Director and Program Director I had the chance to use ACT at various stations. I would keep my ACT up to date with little information about record reps that would call on me, what we could get from them, who they could help us out with and even kids names and birthdays. They would keep a lot of the same information on the radio people they called on. It would insure great birthday cards but in one instance I vaguely remember one rep that was courting me on a record who knew I loved Jerry’s Subs and Pizza from Washington DC. I had moved on to a station in North Carolina but that rep brought me down a steak and cheese on a visit. I asked him how he remembered and he said he put it in his ACT.

The same holds true today for me and my VIPOrbit database. It’s easy for me to keep track of who knows who in the startup world and where I met them. I even have notes about various gate keepers. You can charm your way past a gate keeper if you know the right information.

While the application is phenomenal, what Muhney can teach people about relationships and how to apply it them in the entrepreneurial world will really help in the long run. The amount of data you can find on the internet and then apply to your CRM solution can give anyone the cutting edge.

VIPOrbit will be set up in booth 8-9121 near the Bar TechWeek area during the conference. There you’ll be able to find out all about VIPOrtbit and how it can really help you manage your relationships. You can test drive the iPad and iPhone apps. You can also pick up a copy of Muhney’s book, “Who’s In Your Orbit, Beyond Facebook, Creating Relationships That Matter”.

More importantly Muhney is one of 23 top shelf speakers who will be speaking during TechWeek. His talk “The Business of Meaningful Relationships: Perils & Opportunities” will be presented at 10:30 am on Saturday June 29th. I highly suggest if you’re attending TechWeek you don’t miss it.

Some of the other great speakers include: Matthew Bellows ,founder & CEO of Yesware; Robin Chase, founder and CEO of Zipcar and now Buzzcar; Tony Conrad, founder of About.me; serial entrepreneur Adam Goldenberg; PJ Hyett founder of Github; Matt Jacobson VP at Battery Ventures, and many more.

You can still register for Chicago Techweek happening June 27-29th at the Merchandise Mart. Follow this link to registration.

Check out these stories from last year’s Chicago TechWeek!